Won't You Help To Sing, These Songs of Freedom

They were strange days, the early 2000’s. It was a time where people flew passenger jets into buildings, where nations went to war on the back of a bit of hearsay and some blurry aerial photos, where it was beginning to seem like anyone could be blown to smithereens at any second, and where what was truth in Monday’s paper turned out to be a lie in Wednesday’s. But this wasn’t some Orwellian dystopia. This was the brave new world we were living in. Our governments were doing things that many of us disagreed with, and for some reason, we kept re-electing them.

It made for great songwriting inspiration. People were angry and confused, and popular culture was reflecting that. Ani diFranco wrote Self Evident in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the USA. The Dixie Chicks got themselves into hot water over a comment made at a show in London. All over the world people marched on their houses of government, protesting their nation's involvement in the Iraq Invasion, singing peace songs made famous by Cat Stevens and John Lennon. Everything old was new again. Those old enough to remember the Vietnam War would have noticed striking similarities - both with the impetus for war and the mobilisation to protest.

In 2004, Fat Mike of NOFX launched the Rock Against Bush project, and Lindsay McDougall of Frenzal Rhomb produced the Rock Against Howard compilation album, both aimed at mobilising young voters into overturning the right-leaning governments of the day. When George W. Bush used the Foo Fighters' Times Like These as his campaign song that same year, Dave Grohl did his nut and joined the John Kerry campaign. Despite a great deal of effort, both George W. Bush and John Howard were re-elected, Bush for his second term and Howard for his fourth (and final) term.

After George Bush was re-elected in 2004, the dissent kicked up a notch. Green Day's concept album American Idiot had been released shortly before the US election, but found a new relevancy in the days following. It seemed to be based on an unbending faith in the power of rock and roll to hold back the darkness. It became a rallying point for thousands of young people, many of whom had never heard protest music before hearing American Idiot.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Kanye West alleged that George Bush didn't care about black people.
In the space of 9 days in April and May of 2006, Neil Young wrote and recorded the Living With War album. Like his classic protest song Ohio, it was put together very quickly in response to a current event.
Green Day and U2 teamed up for a cover of the classic Skids track The Saints Are Coming, which featured a video of re-imagined news footage, wherein US forces in Iraq were redeployed to provide humanitarian aid to New Orleans.
Even people who'd never delved into protest music in their entire careers were suddenly compelled to address their concerns - pop star Pink teamed up with the Indigo Girls and surprised everyone with her song Dear Mr President.

It seemed everyone had something to say.

In 2007, Australia had another Federal election - except this time, we voted out John Howard and his centre-right Coalition, and voted in Kevin Rudd, leader of the centre-left Labor Party. Kevin Rudd's first positive actions as Australian Prime Minister, only hours after being sworn in, was to sign the Kyoto Protocol and then in February 2008, apologise to the Indigenous Stolen Generation. And suddenly, it felt like our beds were smouldering, not burning. Australia had entered a new period of social reconciliation.

In 2008, the US electoral juggernaut took off again, culminating in the election and 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama, the first African-American President of the USA. His first positive action was to order the closure of the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

No longer were the youth of the USA Rocking Against Bush...and whether or not George Bush cared about black people didn't matter anymore. All over the world government was changing, and people were feeling optimistic about that change.

I wonder, therefore, are we entering a time of relative peace? Where protest music has no place - because there is nothing to protest against? Remember the musical wasteland of the 90's? Things were pretty good then - the worst of it was probably Bill Clinton getting a gobby from a young intern. We were Mmmbop-ing, Wannabe-ing and wondering Could It Be Magic? all over the place. Sure, we had pretty good music aside from all those radio friendly unit shifters, but it was just some old guff about country houses, bittersweet symphonies and driving around in an unroadworthy car.

Optimism doesn't breed protest - are we destined for another decade of bland rubbish?